1997 Kallang landlady murder
On 13 March 1997, at one of the HDB flats in King George's Avenue, Kallang, 53-year-old Sivapackiam Veerappan Rengasamy was discovered dead in her bedroom by her son. Sivapackiam was found to have been stabbed three times in the neck and she died from the wounds. During police investigations, Sivapackiam's tenant Gerardine Andrew, a 36-year-old prostitute, told police that on the day of the murder, she returned to the flat and saw three people attacking her landlady and robbing her, and they threatened her to leave after briefly holding her hostage. The three suspects – Kamala Rani Balakrishnan, her brother Mansoor Abdullah and Mansoor's friend Nazar Mohamed Kassim – were all arrested within the next few days. It was determined from the trio's confessions that the mastermind of the robbery was actually Gerardine, the same tenant who rented a room from Sivapackiam. Apparently, Gerardine was unsatisfied with the tensions between her and her landlady and thus asked the three to assault and rob Sivapackiam, but Gerardine insisted she never intended to kill her landlady. Gerardine and the three suspects were all charged with murder. Eventually, the two men – Nazar and Mansoor – were convicted of murder and sentenced to death while Gerardine was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder in their joint trial. However, the prosecution's subsequent appeal led to Gerardine being sentenced to death for the original charge of murder, and she was executed alongside the two men in February 1999. Kamala was the sole person out of the four to escape the gallows after she was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for culpable homicide and conspiracy to commit robbery in a separate trial.
Murder and investigation
On 13 March 1997, at around 8.20am in the morning, Selvan Nagalingam, who lived together with his 53-year-old mother Sivapackiam Veerappan Rengasamy at their flat in King George's Avenue, Kallang, left the flat for work. It was only two hours and ten minutes later, Selvan returned home out of concern after his eldest brother told him he could not contact their mother. Upon arriving back home, Selvan was greeted with the shocking sight of his mother's lifeless corpse in her bedroom.After Selvan contacted the police, Inspector Yeo Bee Poh of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) led her team of detectives to investigate the case. Among the witnesses Inspector Yeo interviewed, one of them was 34-year-old Indian prostitute Gerardine Andrew (alias Maria), who rented a room at Sivapackiam's flat for two and a half months prior to the case. Gerardine told police that earlier on, when she returned home after visiting her son, she encountered three robbers, whom she described as an Indian
Prosecution's appeal
On 3 August 1998, the prosecution submitted an appeal against Gerardine's conviction. They argued that Gerardine should be guilty of the original charge of murder and requested to the Court of Appeal to overturn both her conviction for culpable homicide and her eight-year sentence.The prosecution highlighted that Gerardine, to an extent, had knowledge of the knife that Nazar carried with him to Sivapackiam's flat, as confirmed by Nazar's confession and court testimony, as well as Gerardine's first testimony of her seeing the knife in Nazar's hand. The prosecution also argued that while planning the robbery and assault of Sivapackiam, Gerardine and her group did not have the mere intention to rob the landlady and cause simple hurt, but there was also an intention to cause grievous hurt or inflict serious injury to the landlady. Finally, the prosecution pointed out that direct participation in the act should not be the only reason to convict a person of murder as they cited past court ca
Executions and aftermath
On the Friday morning of 26 February 1999, the three convicted killers – 36-year-old Gerardine Andrew, 23-year-old Mansoor Abdullah and 28-year-old Nazar Mohamed Kassim – were all hanged at Changi Prison. Gerardine was recalled as one of the few women who were sentenced to death for capital crimes in Singapore (which also included Mimi Wong, Tan Mui Choo and Hoe Kah Hong).In the aftermath of the case and executions, the annual season of Singaporean crime show Crimewatch featured the murder of Sivapackiam as its eighth episode in the same year of the trio's executions, and the episode first aired on 28 April 1999. Another Singaporean crime show named True Files also re-adapted and featured the case. It first aired as the seventh episode of the show's second season on 7 October 2003, and Nazar's former lawyer David Rasif was featured in an on-screen interview relating to his client's case.The prosecution's appeal verdict, titled Public Prosecutor v Gerardine Andrew, was listed as one of